This invention relates to a method and an apparatus for grouping items, particularly baked goods such as biscuits or cookies which are advanced in edgewise orientation on a supply conveyor to a receiver for forming groups in order to further advance the items in groups to a processing machine (such as a packaging machine).
It is known to group flat items such as biscuits which are advanced in a trough in an upright edgewise orientation. Thus, in Swiss Pat. No. 476,598 there is described an apparatus by means of which biscuit stacks of predetermined length are separated from the lower, leading end of an article column advanced in an inclined trough. For this purpose, the apparatus includes components which, when the predetermined length of the item group on a pusher is reached, penetrate into the stack and retain the same, while the biscuits lowered further by means of the pusher are grasped by a gripper for advancing them for further processing.
A further apparatus of the above type is disclosed in Swiss Pat. No. 380,635. With the aid of a collector slide, edgewise oriented biscuits are, from a supply trough, accumulated in a receiving trough. After a predetermined stack length of the separated group is reached, a separator slide is introduced between the last biscuit of the group and the leading biscuit of the column.
The above-outlined known apparatus require that the thickness of the individual biscuits be practically identical. This further requires that the apparatus be readjusted every time a different type of biscuit is to be handled thereby. In case of layer-like (sandwich-like) biscuits which are formed of two discs with a cream layer therebetween, the thickness variations are of such a magnitude that damaging (breaking) of biscuits is very likely whether group measurement is effected by counting items or by measuring the stack lengths.